10 Days Solo in Kota Kinabalu: The Journey Begins
A quick heads-up for those in a rush: don't go to a resort destination alone. Especially not for 10 days...
To celebrate the end of my year-long stint of unemployment, I decided to take a vacation with two friends: one who had plenty of free time, and another whose world had recently turned pitch black. I planned to spend the first six days with the free-spirited friend, fill the middle four days with the depressed friend, and spend the last two days alone to gather my thoughts and wrap up my jobless life. To make this happen, I bought cheap, non-refundable plane tickets and delegated all the planning to wherever my friends wanted to go.
But. But!! BUT!!! The friend who hadn't had a single thing to do he hadn't even been going to work!! and was bored to death ended up canceling two weeks before the trip because of work. Okay, that was fine. I was trying to stay as positive as possible, thinking, 'I'll just wander around alone for a bit before and after, and we can go somewhere nice together.' But then, just one week before the trip, the remaining friend canceled too. You sons of b*tches!!! We bought the plane tickets in advance, we gave them plenty of notice, and it didn't even seem like a big deal! What kind of company refuses to grant time off? Why on earth do we live like this?
After hearing this damn news that nearly gave me an aneurysm just a week before departure, I couldn't just wallow in despair; I had to start researching where to go. It was incredibly urgent. What could a guy possibly do alone for ten days in a resort town where couples and families usually just veg out for three days? The thought kept crossing my mind: 'Do I really have to go? Should I just cancel and stay home?' But the 270,000 KRW for the plane ticket was too much to waste. I could have eaten so much good food with that money. Throwing it away felt like a waste, but going meant spending even more money while facing a bleak, incredibly lonely future. If Kim Saeng-min (a famously frugal Korean TV personality) saw this, he'd probably yell, "Stupid!!!" What would he have done in this situation? Come to think of it, he probably wouldn't have bought the plane ticket in the first place.
Eventually, departure day arrived, but the only thing I had actually booked was a single hostel. My only "insurance" was a small guidebook that didn't even have much useful information in it. I won't name the title, but seriously, don't write guidebooks like this. Even I could write a better one. It's not like I meticulously planned my previous trips either, but those were either historically rich cities or places where I could just surf or scuba dive to my heart's content without needing an itinerary. But right now, I don't have the money to dive, and the place I'm going to only has three mosques in terms of architecture. The hostel owner said they've never even seen anyone surf there, and to do the only viable activity—snorkeling—you have to go way out into the open ocean. Of all my "whatever happens, happens" tours, this one is definitely the highest difficulty level.
I was in a daze on departure day, as if my soul had left my body. I left with plenty of time to spare, just like I normally do when heading to the airport, but I have no idea how twisted this trip is destined to be—the traffic was so backed up that I couldn't even pick up the items I bought from the online duty-free shop, and I barely made it onto the plane. In the past, I usually took my time and boarded last, but today I sprinted at full speed the moment I got off the bus. I had to shout, "I'm so sorry, I only have 30 minutes left ㅠㅠ I'm really sorry!" to countless people as I made my way through security. As soon as I sat down in my airplane seat, my legs gave out.
Is it really a good idea to go on this trip... It's the first time I've ever had a nightmare while sleeping on a plane ㅠㅠ
